Equilibrium
by workerbee73
Summary: He is the line she will not cross.


[**Author's note:** I'm still working on what should be the last chapter to 'Rest for the Weary' but in the meantime here's a oneshot/drabble that I wrote from Natasha's POV.]

* * *

_"Agent Barton was sent to kill me. He made a different call."_

She uses her body for a living. It's a weapon, a tool for seduction and murder—each is an extension of the other, and she's very talented at both. It's simply what she does. Trained from an early age, long before she understood why it was important to sway her hips when she walked or the difference between a touch and a caress. Body, mind, heart and whatever kind of soul she had—they got to it long ago. Picked it apart and put it back together and transformed it into something else. Something deadly. A poisoned blade hidden in a handful of roses.

And when she broke free of that, when she left her masters to serve only herself, her skills offered up to the highest bidder—she thought it would feel better. Freer. But life was still the same, moving from one atrocity to the next with ruthless efficiency, pale and cold and spiraling toward the abyss until dealing out death was just another part of life. So she learns not to ask questions; learns not to think. She doesn't stop for anything until one day she finds herself on the wrong end of an arrow and a look that feels like blasphemy.

He's been sent here to end this, to destroy the monster that she'd become. Take her out like a rabid dog and play judge and jury for a life that was never worth much in the first place. And he's good, better than anyone she's ever gone up against, as he gets the jump on her in an abandoned warehouse just north of the city, after she's taken out her mark but before she can get close enough to strike back. It occurs to her that he must have been watching her for days, possibly weeks to be able to catch her in just this moment and in just this place, but no matter. Because he's here and he has the advantage and now her time is up. She knew she'd never have a long life, knew that one day all of this would end, probably violently and certainly without remorse.

But he stops. Pauses in the act of drawing back his arm and suddenly it occurs to her that he never needed to get this close to take her out. Curious that her executioner should want such a front-row seat, she lifts up her eyes to meet his. And that's when she sees it. There's something at war there, something haunted and conflicted and for a moment a flicker of recognition passes over his face and her heart nearly stops beating.

_I've seen you before_, his eyes tell her. _I've seen your face in a reflection, in a whisper. In the dark recesses of my mind. __I know you._

She knows all this because she's thinking the exact same thing.

The look is gone almost as soon as it's given and he promptly disappears—back into the shadows, back into that world of watching, of never becoming involved. But it's already too late because now he is involved. Now he's changed his mind and to hell with orders, to hell with the whole goddamn world. It's a look that changes everything, not least of which is the fact that she wakes up still breathing the next morning, burdened with terrible purpose. With this idea that things could be _different_. That maybe her life hasn't been sketched out before it's begun. It's something she almost can't name, the feeling is so strange, but if she had to put a word to it she might say … penance? She really has no idea. This is all uncharted territory.

Three weeks later he's the one helping her get out of Sao Paulo, helping her disappear, leaving a trail of bodies and the fury of hell itself crashing down all around them. Just a handful of words between them and suddenly her executioner has turned ally; the man who would have killed her has become her only friend. It beggars belief and defies comprehension so she doesn't think about it—just takes out the last man between them and the exit of the seedy hotel she's been living in, takes the hand he offers her and runs.

It takes him three months to convince Fury to take her on, but he does. Traitor, asset, time bomb, psychopath—she's heard them all. But she's too valuable to disregard and Barton basically tells them in no uncertain terms that they take her or he walks too.

And what is he? She can't begin to quantify it. Her brain simply shuts down if she tries. A friend, a confidant—something more? All those labels feel too small, too petty for what he has become. This unlikely savior, this comrade, this enigmatic man. She gives up on the labels and resorts to actions instead. Love is for children, but this is something different. This is life itself, her life and his. She searches for absolution, praying for the day she can close her eyes and not see red, and through it all—a thousand missions, a thousand nights, from the frozen plains of Siberia to the darkest corners of a sweltering jungle, she is not alone. He tries to tell her that as much as he can, as much as anyone can who doesn't know how to find the words—_I've found you now. I'm not letting go._

And as she listens to the steady rhythm of his breathing in the pallet just across from hers, she knows it's true. She closes her eyes and joins that rhythm in an effort to say it back.

But bodies are different things altogether—troublesome, dualistic creatures that won't always obey. And hers is always more complicated when he is around. She notices how he looks (she'd be a fool not to) and the way he occasionally looks at her, but it's something they both steadfastly ignore. An unacknowledged certainty, a constant companion to words like _must not_ and _never _and all the things that lay unspoken between them. And while in moments of weakness she sometimes finds herself tempted, she never acts. She just stays still until the feeling passes, until the red creeps back into view and she can't remember anything else. Balance implies distance. Tip the scale one way or the other—get carried away or move too much and it all comes apart. And she needs that balance more than air. More than life itself. And so does he.

So he is the line she will never cross.

Doesn't mean it's not hard. Doesn't mean there aren't days when she wishes it was something else, that they were something else entirely. And today of all days, when they're both still reeling from the idea that this thing between them, that what they have, came so close to being lost forever—never has she been more tempted to close that distance. To show him all the things she can't seem to say.

But she waits, takes a breath and holds steady, holds strong, and says only what he needs to hear. Only that and nothing more. Desire doesn't factor into this. Desire is too damn complicated. Debt is a much safer idea, and debt she understands. Debt is something she can repay.

The other is like looking into an abyss. Blue eyes, the hint of a smile and wonder, so much wonder. She thought she was the only one. She goes to sleep every night grateful for how wrong she was. And slowly, ever so slowly, words like _never_ and _must not_ begin to be replaced with _maybe_ and _one day_. He meets her eyes across a crowded room and gives her a knowing smile. He's still here and so is she and for now—that's enough.


End file.
